


In the Company of Exiles

by lucidscreamer



Series: Sky and Sea [16]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Mermaids, Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Atlantis, Cameos, Drabble Sequence, Exiles, Families of Choice, Fictional Religion & Theology, Found Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Male-Female Friendship, Minor Character Death, Original Mermaid Culture, POV Female Character, POV Isis, Prophetic Dreams, Prose Poem, Seers, Wakes & Funerals, outcasts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 11:50:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18445970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucidscreamer/pseuds/lucidscreamer
Summary: Isis hatched with visions already strung like precious pearls in her mind.





	1. A Dream of Drowning

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! is the creation of Kazuki Takahashi. No ownership of the canon characters, settings, or events is claimed and none should be implied.
> 
> Original merfolk culture in this series is the creation and sole property of Lucidscreamer.
> 
> Prompt for chapter 1: 13. Dreams

Born in a Meditterranean _Misplace_ , Isis is a Seer. The lifeblood of Atlantis flows in her veins. Thenope Who Dreams opened her third eye in the egg; Isis hatched with visions already strung like precious pearls in her mind. For as long as her memory stretches, prophecy has haunted her Dreams.

Her dreams chase her from her haven, into perilous seas.

With her now swim brothers, adopted on the way: Rishid drifting in her wake like a protective shadow, his shaven head a declaration of shame; Malik, young and fragile, sheltering between.

　

o0o

　

For as long as she has been, Isis has Dreamed. She Dreams the Past and the Future, mingled and mixed so that at times she cannot find her Present. Her vagueness drives away those she might have called friend; her Voice is muted. Unable to Sing, she is a disappointment to her family, Singers all. She has heard it said that Seers are loved and feared in equal measure, but here she finds only fear. She is too young when she swims free of the green waters of her home, too young to venture out on her own, too unwelcome to remain. She Dreams of distant waters, of fire and blood and scales like sunset. She Dreams of drowning, and feels reborn in hope.

　

 


	2. Cartography for an Aimless Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: 72. Runaway

Self-exiled, Isis wanders with no set destination, no navigation. Not even the stars guide her. Her Dreams are not maps; she simply swims, letting whim take her and trusting Fate's currents to sweep her where she's meant to go.

Outside the _Misplace_ , her visions change. No longer does she remember the future. The past is behind her, the present all around. It's strange, but good.

She meets Malik as he is fleeing the Red Sea, trailing blood and betrayal in his wake. He claims no clan, no Charm, only a "brother" shockingly shorn of all but a single black lock.

　

　

o0o

　

　

 Malik's own fair hair floats loose and light, ragged where he's torn free long-held tokens. None remain, nothing of clan or Charm or achievement; he wears no history but that carved into his back by his father's knife. In Isis' Dreams, Malik is bright, shining; in the Now, he is faded, sun-in-winter pale, diminished.

Odion's single lock is dark as squid ink and bound in twists of leather. He, too, has shed his tokens, his shorn head a penance, a declaration of shame. He blames himself for Malik's state and when the boy chose to run, Odion followed. If Malik is a pale star, Odion is the faithful planet orbiting him. And yet, they shift their paths to join hers, uncaring where she leads. Hard-won, their trust is a treasure worth more than all the riches she left behind.

　

 


	3. Bound Not by Blood

For Isis, linear time is... strange. She has Dreamed the past and remembered the future. Now, dawn to noon to night follows in unyielding sequence. Her Dreams still lead her, and she her little makeshift Charm; but the visions are less vivid here, open to interpretation. Rather than set her a clear course, they meander, coil, and recurve.

She wanders the oceans like a bit of drifting flotsam, at the mercy of wave and whim, barely noticing the passage of present into past -- Seer's eyes always searching for the future, for destiny disguised in sunset.

Years become decades, become centuries...

　

o0o

　

In the time since she left her home waters, Isis has become a queen of sorts. Her collected Charm would grant her the title if she let them, but she is not royal despite her ancient bloodline. Her foremothers were Seers, as her daughters will be, and theirs. She has no ambition for title or crown.

Her little Charm has grown in the centuries since its inception. Isis bows to the will of Those Who Bless and Curse. She swims where her visions lead her -- far, and far, and farther still -- gathering those she finds along the way. She names them all 'friend'.

Eventually, they name each other 'family'.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may have to take break from posting. I'm sick again and fever is not condusive to writing.


	4. Shark Dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the updated tags.
> 
> Prompt: 94. Tears

The first time her visions betray her, they are in unfamiliar waters. The oceans are vast and most merfolk stay close to home, so none of them have braved these waves before. She Dreams, always... but more and more, her Dreams are amorphous things, vague and unsettling. Some are filled with dark shapes gliding like shadows in the water, others with inky clouds dispersing before her eyes as if she's startled a mass of squid.

The enemy comes from nowhere, silent like shadows, like sharks. Serpentine, swift, implacable. They demand nothing, accept nothing but lifeblood.

Odion is first to fall.

o0o

　

Malik is a fierce fighter, a golden blur in water stained dark with blood, spear and blade swift and sure in his hands. But when Odion falls, Malik falters. Karim shields him, taking the death that would have been his. Blood billows in the water, black as ink. Shadow-shapes filter through the chaos, the darkness in the waves, serpent-shapes with bladed fangs that strike, bite, kill. Isis' eyes are clouded by remembered visions, reinterpreted on the fly. She Sees -- now, too late. Sees the enemy all around her, sickly green scales, opalescent talons, eyes like a shark's -- black and remorseless, a predator's hungry gaze fixed on her family.

The battle stretches a moment into eternity.

And then the chaos quiets into the stillness after a storm. Tears and blood mingle their salt with that of the sea as the Charm tallies the cost of victory. A single loss is too many, and they have lost many times over. Steadfast Odion, brave Karim, little Mana with her boundless energy. Isis curses her gift's betrayal, curses her inability to See the warning she had been given. It is the first time her visions have let her down; she knows it will not be the last.

It is always the Singers who lay the dead to rest. For they are the ones whose fierce red songs can chase away the sharks, both those seeking an easy meal of flesh and the giant shadow sharks who swim the boundaries of Phitrion's realm, ever vigilant for wandering souls. In the wake of the battle, the Singers raise their Voices, releasing their grief, their anger, as they chase away the scavengers from their reduced number. The mourners gently tow away their dead, leaving their fallen enemies behind. _Let the sea do with those bodies as it will_ , she thinks, harsh in her bereavement. _Let the sea_ feast.

　

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Despite feeling like crap, I hated to lose my momentum (I have managed to update or post something new at least once a week for a while now.) Got inspired, so cranked this out. Wasn't expecting what happened, but such is the life of a Pantser.


	5. Tokens for the Dead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 92\. Slipping Away

Unwelcome, attacked, they dare not linger in this place for the seventy days of proper mourning. Mahaad constructs a makeshift shrine on the edge of the chasm to which they commit the dead. The Charm comes to desposit offerings -- carved shells, gems, tokens taken from their hair -- and murmur prayers for the safe passage of the departing souls. For as long as they can, Singers circle, Voices an unyielding shield for the bodies sinking, slowly spiraling into the lightless deep.

Malik cuts his braids and sends them after Odion, a final offering to bless his crossing into Phitrion's chartless sea.

　

o0o

　

The Deathsong is eerie, rising and falling notes that echo the beat of a fading heart, felt in blood and bone like the mournful call of a lost soul. Malik leads the choir of Singers as they circle, his head fresh-shorn of braids. The short spikes that remain flutter about his face like the tendrils of a disturbed anemone. He has kept a single twist of long blond hair, the one bearing the tokens of family, brotherhood, Charm. A new token graces the end of the braid, honoring Odion. (Isis touches its twin, woven into her own hair, and weeps.)

 


	6. The Blood of Atlantis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: 22. Fear

Sometimes, Isis wishes she were like her sisters, her mother. The gift can skip generations; in her family, none had Seen since long before her grandmother hatched. They had Voices, not Dreams. But Isis has always Seen, alway Dreamed.

Now that she knows the truth of her vision, Sees it without the veil of reality obscuring it, Isis connects the links through the chain of Dreams that's haunted her from birth. She knows this enemy. Knows it in her veins. Knows their shape, their slashing talons wet with blood.

Her hands tremble as she makes a warding sign against evil.

　

o0o

　

In her dreams, Isis sees the spires of Atlantis, bright and gleaming and whole. White and silver, blue and copper, gold-capped and dazzling with shafts of sunlight filtering through the crystal-clear water. Rainbows dance across the courtyards where light prisms through stained-glass windows. The people of the city are beautiful, their long hair weighted with precious metals and gems, preserved blooms, and delicate sparks of magic captured in twists of glass. Their scales shimmer with the colors of sunset as they dance between the towers. This is the city she was meant for: peaceful and bright, filled with beauty and light. It is the city her ancestors built for her, for her people. It is the city the enemy stole from her, with each heart they ripped away and ate. The city they painted red with its citizens' blood.

She wakes shattered by grief. Resolve glues her back together.

 


	7. Mythspeaker, Dreamkeeper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: 6. Destiny

Mahaad's Mythspeaker, historian, keeper of the past as Isis keeps the future. It's to him she speaks -- of Atlantis, of sunset scales falling beneath enemy talons, of fear, hope, destiny. As he's done since coming to them, Mahaad listens, remembers. If Atlantis' enemies take her, he'll ensure her vision doesn't die with her.

Despite years of Dreaming, Isis remains uncertain how it'll happen. She's unsure what is Seeing, what is hoping. If her longed-for resolution isn't true destiny, she'll wrangle it into being regardless. Because her Charm's wandered long and far; all she wants is to finally lead them home.

　

　

o0o

　

Mahaad refuses to talk about his former life. Whatever had happened to him, he came to them battered in body and spirit, almost mute with some close-held guilt or grief, a soul half-hollowed by solitude. For a long time, he drifted -- with the Charm, but apart from it. He never shirked duty or labor (seemed, in fact, to prefer hard work as if exhausting his body was the only way to ease his mind), was kind and helpful. But he didn't seek companionship, closed himself off, set himself to solitude by his silences. Even now, he listens more than he speaks. But his friendship is steadfast and his silence makes him what Isis needs, now more than ever. In the dark waters of the night, in the vastness of the open ocean, he is the willing vessel into which she unburdens her cares.

　

 


	8. Mute in The Presence Of Mine Enemies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: 9. Tournament

It's the blood-scent in the water that alerts them first. Next they hear/feel the Singers, a cacaphony of unmelodious Voices competing for dominance. Isis first instinct is to flee; this is not her territory, neither side of this struggle belongs to her. The safety of her Charm is paramount.

But Malik -- never content with caution -- darts ahead. He's the fastest swimmer of them all, and slippery as an eel. She hides the small ones, the old and the infirm. Only when she hears Malik's Voice rise with the rest does she panic.

She's Voiceless, but she girds herself for battle.

　

o0o

　

Isis' pulse is the strong, quick tide surging. Her bones thrum with the deeper infrasound of the Singers, her skin prickles with lightning. Above, someone Calls the storm; the sea churns with its fury. Around her, the water is inky with blood and her Sight is clouded with visions. _Audra Storm-Caller , your blood is here. King of Glass Towers, your blood is here._ Destiny ripples around her, fluid as the water, dangerous as the depths. The future is a chasm, a shark's maw stretching wide and hungry, ready to devour the unwary. She clutches her obsidian blade, blind to the Now but fighting. Destiny guides her hand, bloods her blade in the side of a shark-finned foe. She hears Malik, Rebeka (disobedient child, refusing to stay safe!), others of her Charm Singing strong enough to stir the already turbulent waves to frenzy. She feels the brush of scales past her own, friend? Foe? She does not see the dagger that almost takes her heart, only knows the danger once it is past as strong arms sweep her to safety, barely glimpses the fins of her savior disappearing into the fray in a flash of scales the colors of sunset.

　

 


End file.
